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Manufacturers are rapidly increasing their capability to collect and analyze data. This data can be used to deploy KPI metrics, like OEE, providing real time and historical feedback on the productivity of manufacturing operations. This data can also be used as the basis for continuous improvement projects designed to increase efficiency and reduce waste.

But how do manufacturers know what impact these projects are having on their bottom line? Are they worth the cost to deploy? DMC and AltaVia, two founding members of the Siemens MEAC (Manufacturing Operations Management Expertise Alliance Center) are partnering to answer this question while bringing advanced data analytics to your factory floor. DMC provides the data collection and manufacturing intelligence tools to capture everything that happens on the factory floor. Alta Via provides the financial model and business analysis to determine the impact of changes to manufacturing metrics on financial metrics.

By providing the data collection and analytic power of Siemens WinCC and SIMATIC IT combined with the cost modeling capability of AltaVia’s ProEO, DMC and AltaVia can not only collect and analyze data coming from your factory floor, but they can also tell you how much improvements in quality, performance, and efficiency will impact your bottom line.

In short, they translate improvements in typical KPI measures such as OEE into improvements in your bottom line.

The benefits of this approach go beyond just identifying the projects with the greatest potential, they also allow you to monitor the effects of your improvement projects in real time. You can verify not only that your KPI’s are improving, but that the company bottom line is improving as well.

Financial Modeling of plant operations. Integration into existing business systems.

Predictive impact—Which potential projects are worth investing in?

Real time tracking of the effect of KPI improvements on financial data—Is a project realizing its predicted impact, and why or why not?

For example, let’s suppose a manufacturer identifies that they have a tradeoff between quality and performance. They can easily optimize their line performance to maximize output and thus, their top line revenue. They could even go a step further and adjust for the wasted raw material to optimize profitability. But what they don’t know is the secondary cost of producing bad product or the secondary benefits of increased production. There may be costs to identify, evaluate, and dispose of this product that are not easily captured in this optimization. There may be reduced labor costs or scheduling optimizations that are realized from better productivity. Further, their optimized performance for profitability is not where they achieve maximum OEE. The combination of DMC’s and AltaVia’s performance captures all of this information and provides a more detailed and actionable picture of plant performance.

In this case, the manufacturer needs to couple quality improvements before or as part of their performance improvement initiative. Only then will the performance improvements not only increase OEE, but overall profitability as well. Thus, you can turn your data directly into dollars.